Hundreds of OUSD students walked out of class today.
Two student organizers tell us what they’re protesting and what’s next for their movement.
Students participate in a sickout and march in support of Oakland teachers, Feb. 8
Hundreds of Oakland students walked out of their schools this morning to protest low teacher pay, school closures that target working-class families of color, and overcrowded, under-resourced classrooms.
Although the student organizers of today’s student walkout are young, today’s success shows they’ve already worked through political complications that dog organizers twice their age: how to nurture a multiracial movement that draws power and legitimacy from popular material demands.
Majority interviewed two of the organizers behind today’s action, Lauren K. and Theo Z., both seventeen-year-old students at Oakland Tech. They began their work as student organizers in the wake of the Parkland shooting, when thousands of Oakland students walked out off class to join the March for Our Lives.
However, the broad popularity of that walkout didn’t translate into a diverse membership for their core organizing club at Oakland Tech, which dwindled to a handful of white students in the months after the march.
Majority: What’s different about this week’s walkout?
Theo: What the district is doing is disproportionately targeting minorities and low-income families, and the schools that are closing, none of them are in the hills, they’re in East and West Oakland. It’s a more relatable issue for more students [than school shootings]. The interesting thing about school shootings is they’re the only type of gun violence based in the suburbs.
Lauren: A problem we had was [the original members of the organizing club] basically just reached out to their friends to join, and the school is segregated into small schools that break down by race. Everyone is reaching out to their friends within this segregated school, so the club wasn’t diverse. But with this event, we’ve joined students from all over the school, people who’d never been part of the club. This time around, we have a very diverse group of leaders.
Why did you call a sickout?
Lauren: I’m sure you heard about the teachers’ sickout they had a couple weeks ago. So a few problems we noted with that: a) all the teachers lost money because they were not teaching, they were not in class, and that’s the same problem they will have with the strike, so while teachers will put pressure on the district they’ll also be losing money, and b), when the teachers did their sickout all the students who were absent were marked present which is…
Theo: Super illegal.
Lauren: Very, very wrong. And the district didn’t lose any money from that because according to them we were all present. … The difference in the student-only sickout is that the teachers will be in class so they will be making money which I think sends a powerful message that we support them, they can keep making money, and work is being done.
Why are you organizing in support of the teachers?
Lauren: As students, we see better than anyone how hard our teachers work, and we know that they’re not getting paid enough to live in Oakland which is ridiculous. They should be able to afford to live here. And on top of that, we see our counselors who CONTINUE READING: Hundreds of OUSD students walked out of class today. Two student organizers tell us what they’re protesting and what’s next for their movement. | East Bay Majority
